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Friday, 31 July 2015

The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is hit by tsunami on March 11, 2011.

Three
former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. will stand trial
over their criminal responsibility for the 2011 disaster at TEPCO’s
Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
For the second time, the Tokyo No. 5 Committee for the Inquest of
Prosecution has rejected an earlier decision by prosecutors not to
indict the three, setting the stage for the forced prosecution of
these three individuals.
They will be accused of professional negligence resulting in the
deaths of people who were in hospitals when the disaster happened and
other tragedies.
A report issued by the Diet’s Fukushima nuclear accident
investigation committee states, “It is clear that the accident was
a man-made disaster.”
But no government officials or TEPCO employees have been punished,
either politically or administratively. In other words, no one has
been held accountable for the nation's worst nuclear accident.
Many Japanese citizens still feel that justice has not been meted
out with regard to that harrowing disaster. Many are also concerned
that a similar accident may occur again if nobody is held responsible
for what happened in 2011.
A second decision by the independent judicial panel of citizens to
demand the criminal prosecution of the three former TEPCO executives
should be viewed as indicative of the disturbing and disquieting
feelings among many citizens.
The system of forced indictment through the judgment of citizens
was introduced in 2009, along with the “saiban-in” citizen judge
system. Until that time, public prosecutors monopolized the power to
decide whether to indict a suspect. The new system is intended to
ensure that public opinion is reflected in the process of criminal
prosecution, at least to a certain degree.
In reversing public prosecutors’ decision not to indict the
suspects on grounds that there is no compelling case for holding them
liable for negligence, the panel of citizens made a grave decision to
force trials of the three individuals.
The court should, of course, consider carefully and fairly whether
the former TEPCO executives should be held liable for the misfortunes
of disaster victims from the viewpoint of evidence submitted.
At the same time, one question that needs to be asked is how TEPCO
implemented measures to protect the nuclear plant from a possible
tsunami and ensure the plant’s safety.
Collectively, the trials will offer a great opportunity to take a
fresh look into the accident from a perspective that is different
from those of the investigation committees set up by the government
and the Diet.
There have not been many opportunities for people to talk about
the disaster in public. But the three former TEPCO executives will
probably be given opportunities to speak in the courtroom. The court
can also order submission of specific pieces of evidence.
Future public debate on issues concerning nuclear power generation
will benefit greatly if the trials uncover unknown facts in the
process, such as chronological changes in the utility’s decisions
concerning safety measures for its nuclear power plants and the ways
the government and other public organizations influenced the
company’s policy.
The nation’s judiciary has a long history of handing down
rulings related to nuclear power generation. But in most of the past
cases concerning the construction and operations of nuclear power
plants, the courts ruled against opposing local residents.
The question is whether all these court rulings in favor of
nuclear power were influenced in any way by the perception that there
is no way to stop the expansion of electricity production with atomic
energy based on the government’s energy policy.
The judiciary’s attitude to nuclear power generation has also
been called into question by the accident.
In considering the criminal liabilities related to the Fukushima
nuclear disaster, which has caused an unprecedented scale of damage,
are the traditional criteria, like “specific predictability,”
sufficiently effective?
The trials should prompt the judicial community to have more
in-depth debate on this question.
We strongly hope the trials will be conducted in a way that lives
up to people’s confidence in the judicial system.
Source: Asahi Shimbun http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/editorial/AJ201508010028

After
reading that article, I believe that this kid will be a tool for the
the Japanese Government, which will be using that kid testimony to
minimize the desperate extent of the situation in Fukushima, to justify
its non evacuation of many people, the
financially forced return of the previoulsly evacuees to go back to
live in contaminated villages and to promote an illusory criminal
reconstruction in the eyes of the world at the UN....She has been
coached to that effect.....At least that is the impression this article
gives me....

I
must add that to use a victim, a youth, as agent for their propaganda,
is pretty slick, sly and devious, on the Japanese government part...

Poor
kid, she is being manipulated without even be aware of it....Sad,
disgusting...

"...
it is not the entire area of Fukushima Prefecture, but only some
regions that people cannot live in. Most of Fukushima is safe to live
in."Unless: 1. The wind blows2. It rains3. You eat the food4. You breathe"...there is a lot of good news about Fukushima too." Do tell!!! Then,
come back in 20 years and let us know which cancer(s) you have faced,
if you have had a child with birth defects...at 16, it is so very easy
to manipulate you. You want to go 'home'...it just isn't there anymore.

Ayumi Kikuchi, left, practices the speech she will give at a United
Nations event with her English teacher, Fumi Arimura, in Iwaki,
Fukushima Prefecture, on July 23. She attends the relocated Futaba High
School, now operating in the city of Iwaki.

Fukushima
high school evacuee to share experiences at United Nations

IWAKI,
Fukushima Prefecture--A high school student who thought she was only
temporarily fleeing her home during the 2011 Fukushima nuclear
disaster and remains an evacuee to this day, will address an event at
the United Nations headquarters this month.

Ayumi Kikuchi, 16, a former resident of Futaba, Fukushima
Prefecture, located near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant that
suffered a triple meltdown, was asked by school officials to give the
speech in New York City.
A nonprofit organization that deals with the issues of human
rights, health and the environment contacted the prefectural Futaba
High School, which now operates out of the nearby city of Iwaki. It
invited a student from the prefecture to come and share their
experiences of having lived through those trying events and the
aftermath.
"At that time, I was a sixth-grader in my elementary school,
and we were going to graduate in a few days," Kikuchi says in
her speech. "My home was 4 kilometers from the plant. At that
time, I didn't understand why we had to leave our home, and I thought
we could come back home soon."
However, she has been forced to live in various shelters over the
years, including the Saitama Super Arena and one set up at the former
Kisai High School in Kazo, Saitama Prefecture.
"I wondered what's going to happen to us (at the time),"
she said. She remembered watching the events unfold on the news.
"I went back to my home only once after the accident,"
she wrote. "There were many houses left collapsed and roads
still had cracks. Nothing seemed to have changed since the disaster.
However, the inside of my house was totally different from what I
remembered because of animal excreta and rain leaking in."
The high school student said she hopes to one day work for the
local government to help restore her town to what it once was.
Her school, which has a history of more than 90 years, will close
after her class graduates. Four other relocated high schools are also
scheduled to close.
"Many graduates are feeling very sorry and regretting that
their old school is forced to close even though the school or the
students have done nothing wrong themselves," Kikuchi says in
her speech.
In her message, Kikuchi will call on people to help one another in
times of disaster. She also plans to ask people to share and pass on
the memories that result from such devastating events.
"I want people to know about Fukushima's situation
accurately," she wrote. "People in other countries may
think that Fukushima is uninhabitable and may wonder why people don't
flee from Fukushima. In fact, however, it is not the entire area of
Fukushima Prefecture, but only some regions that people cannot live
in. Most of Fukushima is safe to live in. Also, various movements
toward reconstruction have been made, and there is a lot of good news
about Fukushima too."
Fumi Arimura, an English teacher at Kikuchi’s school, helped her
write her 10-minute speech. Kikuchi leaves for the United States on
Aug. 2.
Source: Asahi Shimbun

Three former top
executives at Tokyo Electric Power Co. are set to be hauled into
court over their alleged responsibility for the 2011 Fukushima
nuclear crisis.

The Tokyo No. 5 Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution voted
Friday that Tsunehisa Katsumata, chairman of Tepco at the time of the
disaster, and two former vice presidents, Sakae Muto and Ichiro
Takekuro, should be indicted for professional negligence resulting in
death and injury.
The announcement by the panel of citizens came more than four
years after the massive tsunami of March 11, 2011, knocked out the
critical cooling functions at Tepco’s Fukushima No. 1 plant,
leading to three of the six reactors there melting down.
Prosecutors have twice previously decided not to seek such
indictments, saying Tepco could not have expected such a massive
tsunami to hit the nuclear plant and cripple its critical safety
systems.
But on Friday the committee overrode the prosecutors’ decisions
for a second time, which will lead to a compulsory indictment of the
three Tepco executives. They were all responsible for major disaster
prevention planning.
Holding a news conference at the Tokyo District Court,
representatives of a group of Fukushima residents and others who have
filed criminal complaints against the executives said they were
elated.
“I want (the Tepco executives) to tell the truth” during the
upcoming trials, said Ruiko Muto.
Muto said many elderly people who evacuated from the
radiation-contaminated areas have since died in shelters away from
their hometowns, while numerous people still living in Fukushima are
being exposed to radiation via contaminated materials from the
heavily damaged plant.
Muto said many people outside the prefecture have the impression
that the nuclear crisis is over.
“If who should be held responsible is not made clear, (the dead)
victims won’t rest in peace,” she added.
Before the catastrophe, Tepco had conducted simulations and
concluded that critical facilities at Fukushima No. 1 would be
flooded and critically damaged if a major earthquake struck off the
Tohoku coast and tsunami of more than 10 meters in height hit the
plant.
But prosecutors concluded that it was impossible for Tepco to
predict such gigantic tsunami would actually hit the plant, as
opinions from quake experts were not established regarding the
possibility of such a powerful quake.
The judicial review committee said the Tepco executives were
obliged to prepare for a worst-case scenario even if the possibility
of such a disaster was considered very small.
The simulations provided a good indication that a major crisis was
possible, but the three neglected their obligation to prepare for
such an eventuality, the committee concluded in a 30-page document
explaining its decision.
The panel pointed out that 44 patients who were forced to evacuate
from a hospital located 4.5 km from Fukushima No. 1 died after their
health conditions deteriorated because of the move. The committee
alleged that their deaths were caused by the meltdown crisis.
Meanwhile, no health damage has so far been confirmed to have been
caused by radiation from contaminated materials released from the
plant.
The committee said one person who was exposed to radiation from
contaminated materials has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, but a
causal link with the meltdown disaster has not been established.
The central government is preparing to allow the reactivation of
some commercial reactors suspended in the wake of the Fukushima
crisis.
Muto said she hopes the findings in the upcoming trials will
prompt a change in the national nuclear policy and lead to the
abolition of all nuclear power plants.
Source: Japan Times

Nuclear plant workers in Japan will be allowed to be exposed to
more than twice the current level of radiation in emergency
situations, according to the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s
Radiation Council.
The radiation exposure limit will be raised from the current 100
millisieverts to 250 millisieverts in emergencies, the radiation
council announced in a report released July 30.
The higher level is still only half of the accepted international
safety level of 500 millisieverts set by the International Commission
on Radiological Protection, an influential independent organization
that provides guidelines on radiation protection, for rescue workers
in emergency situations at nuclear facilities.
The new cap will be activated from April 2016 after revisions to
the nuclear reactor regulatory law and the Industrial Safety and
Health Law.
The limit was temporarily raised to 250 millisieverts by the
radiation council following the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No.
1 nuclear power plant triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake
and tsunami in March 2011.
The decision was quickly made by the council members through
e-mail discussions as the 100 millisieverts limit could have caused a
shortage of workers tackling the emergency at the plant. Later, the
limit was returned to 100 millisieverts.
Under the revised law, the exposure limit for plant workers will
be immediately raised to 250 millisieverts when certain conditions
arise, including the risk of radioactive materials leaking from the
facility into the surrounding area.
The workers affected will include employees of utility companies
and their contractors, inspection officers from the Secretariat of
the NRA and other on-field workers.
Of the 174 workers who were exposed to radiation doses more than
100 millisieverts following the Fukushima accident, six were exposed
to 250 millisieverts or more.
The radiation council decided that workers are protected if they
wear masks and other gear even when exposed to 250 millisieverts. The
health damage from acute radiation poisoning below that limit is
negligible, it said.
The council’s report calls for nuclear plant operators to
carefully explain to workers tackling emergency situations about
their tasks and obtain their consent to work in such an environment.
It also requests utility companies to conduct proper training of
workers, while one of the council members also called on them to
conduct follow-up medical checks to detect cancer and other
illnesses.
The report also acknowledges that nuclear plant workers could be
required to engage in tasks that cause them to be exposed to more
than 250 millisieverts in acute emergency situations.
At Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Sendai nuclear power plant in
Kagoshima Prefecture, which the company aims to restart in August,
workers will carry out their tasks with an exposure limit of 100
millisieverts until the maximum limit is raised to 250 millisieverts.
A plant worker who has worked at nuclear facilities for 20 years
said he suspects that workers from subcontractors will agree to work
under the raised limit.
“The cancer checkups and other measures also sound to me as
stopgap efforts to ease our anxiety,” he said.
Source: Asahi Shimbun

Three
former TEPCO executives to stand trial

Three
former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company will face mandatory
indictment over the March 2011 nuclear accident at the Fukushima
Daiichi plant.

Nobody has been held criminally responsible so
far for Japan's worst nuclear accident.

The prosecution
inquest panel of randomly-selected citizens voted for the indictment
on Friday, disagreeing for a 2nd time with prosecutors who had
dismissed the complaint filed against the officials. The prosecutors
said the officials could not have predicted a quake and tsunami on
the scale of the March 11th disasters.

The decision leads to
the mandatory indictment of former TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata
and former vice presidents Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro for
professional negligence resulting in death and
injury.

Court-appointed lawyers will act as prosecutors in the
trial.

In its decision, the panel said TEPCO should have taken
measures to protect the plant from tsunami and flood-triggered
serious accidents after it had made a projection of a 15.7-meter
tsunami hitting the plant.

The panel said TEPCO could have
foreseen that in a worst-case scenario, flooding would result in a
massive release of radioactive substances or other severe situations.
The panel said that if TEPCO had taken appropriate precautions, a
serious accident like the one in March 2011 could have been
avoided.

Prosecutors in 2013 dismissed the initial complaints
filed by Fukushima residents and others against more than 30 former
TEPCO officials for failing to take precautions against major quakes
and tsunami.

The case was taken up for reconsideration by the
inquest panel, which decided in July last year that the three
officials should be indicted.

But prosecutors dismissed the
case again in January, sending it back to the inquest panel. Source: NHK

Residents hail
indictment decision

The leader of the residents,
Ruiko Muto, has praised the panel's decision.

Muto said she
believes a court will determine who was responsible for the 2011
Fukushima nuclear disaster and give a fair judgment.

She said
that 110,000 people are still unable to return to their homes. She
added that having the former executives face a criminal trial will
help prevent a recurrence and create a society in which people can
live in peace.

The residents' lawyer, Hiroyuki Kawai, also
said that if the former officials had escaped indictment, the real
cause of the accident would have been covered up forever.He
expressed hope that the trial will find out more about what caused
the nuclear accident.

TEPCO declined to comment on the
decision or the criminal complaint that led to it.

But it said
in a statement that it wants to renew its heartfelt apology to the
people of Fukushima and many others for causing trouble and
concern.

The firm said it will do its utmost for compensation,
plant decommissioning and decontamination, based on the principle of
seeking reconstruction of Fukushima. It added that it is fully
resolved to improving the safety of nuclear power plants. Source: NHK http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150731_80.html

The operator of the crippled
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it has finished removing
highly radioactive water from underground tunnels linked to the
reactor buildings.

More than 10,000 tons of highly
contaminated water flowed into the tunnels outside the buildings for
reactors No.2 and 3. Experts feared that the water might seep into
the sea.

The concern led the plant operator, Tokyo Electric
Power Company, to try and block any more tainted water from entering
the tunnels.

The firm has been filling the tunnels with cement
to pump out contaminated water since November.

It finished
draining the No.2 reactor building's tunnels late last month. The
company says it also completed similar work on the tunnels connected
to the No.3 reactor building on Thursday.

The firm will
continue the work to fill the tunnels with cement until sometime late
next month.

The utility initially attempted to freeze
radioactive water in sections where the tunnels connect to the
reactor buildings. But this did not work.

The government and
TEPCO had placed top priority on addressing the highly radioactive
water in the tunnels due to a fear that it might badly pollute the
sea near the plant. The latest achievement will significantly reduce
that risk. Source: NHK http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150731_01.html

Thursday, 30 July 2015

I have a friend, from Belgium, Alain de Halleux, he is a movie maker.
He is quite famous among the french speaking community because many
years ago he made an excellent documentary on Chernobyl (in french).
3 years ago, he went to Japan and also to Fukushima, stayed a few months, and shot a documentary titled "Welcome to Fukushima".
That documentary is excellent, because:
1. He is not an amateur cameraman but a professional cameraman
2. He interviewed many people evacuees and non-evacuees, so it brings very well the human angle.
3. This is definitely THE BEST documentary I have seen about Fukushima.
Unfortunately
that documentary at present has only been distributed in Japan and in
European French speaking countries: Belgium, France, Switzerland. It is
in Japanese with French subtitles.
I am thinking that this excellent
movie should reach the english-speaking countries, so I am now enquiring
to some of my contacts, how to find a way to have this documentary
distributed in an english-version (to be made) either on TV channels or
on a tour.
I want to find a way to make this movie reach many, it is a
unique eye opener on Fukushima, this if well distributed, reaching many
people, could help awake many, and make a real difference, all the
other documentaries I saw about Fukushima do not have the kind of punch
that this one has...
He is also very active in renewable energy....helping a wind energy citizen cooperative in Southern Belgium....
He
is also now working on a new documentary, about Taro Yamamoto and his
fight against nuclear as an independent elected parlement deputy in
Japan, Taro Yamamoto being a key figure in the antinuclear movement in
Japan....
If any one of you has any suggestion, or contact to help
this documentary to be distributed to a larger public in an english
version, please send me an email. Thank you.
herve.courtois@yahoo.com

Japan has survived without
atomic energy for almost two years since all of the country’s
nuclear power reactors were taken offline in the aftermath of the
Fukushima nuclear accident triggered by the March 2011 earthquake and
tsunami disaster.
The country rode out summers and winters, despite surges in
electricity demand for air-conditioning and heating purposes, with no
major blackouts.
The triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant,
which threatened the very survival of the Japanese state, has yet to
be brought under control.
Opinion polls show that more than half of the general public is
opposed to restarting nuclear reactors. The public's desire to keep
the reactors offline, even at the cost of inconvenience, is due to
the fact that people have learned how dreadful atomic energy can be.
However, the Abe administration is seeking a return to nuclear
power. It is preparing to restart Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s
Sendai nuclear power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture in August, and
aims eventually to have atomic energy account for 20 percent or more
of Japan’s electricity mix in the future.
We oppose any return to nuclear power that comes without serious
debate. Japan should make utmost efforts to avoid restarts, while at
the same time taking care that doing so will not place an onerous
burden on people’s living standards. Our energy needs should be
centered on renewable energy sources rather than nuclear power as the
primary source of electricity.POWER DEMAND ALREADY COVERED
The Asahi Shimbun published a series of editorials in 2011 calling
for a society free of nuclear power.
We stated that all of Japan’s nuclear reactors should be
decommissioned, hopefully in 20 to 30 years, with priority given to
aged reactors and high-risk reactors. The reactors to be kept alive
should be selected on a “safety first” basis and limited to those
necessary from the viewpoint of supply and demand.
We also stated that Japan should do its best to develop and spread
the use of renewable energy sources while simultaneously pursuing
measures for power saving and energy conservation. Thermal power
generation could be strengthened as a stopgap measure, although steps
should be sought in the long term so that a departure from nuclear
energy does not contribute to global warming.
We also said Japan should push forward with power industry reform
to encourage new entrants into the market while moving toward a
decentralized energy society where wisdom and consumer choice play a
greater role.
Our basic ideas remain the same. But the situation has changed
over the last four years.
The most dramatic development is that the amount of electricity
generated by nuclear reactors is now zero.
Nuclear reactors were up and running across Japan four years ago.
They were subsequently taken offline one after another for regular
inspections. Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Oi nuclear power plant in
Fukui Prefecture was reactivated temporarily, but no single nuclear
reactor has been brought back online since September 2013.
Despite concerns that were raised, no serious power shortages
occurred. Emergency power sources were raked up to stave off a crisis
on some occasions, but there has always been sufficient supply to
cover demand, partly because the practice of saving power has taken
root in the public mind, and partly also because capacities were
enhanced at thermal power plants and regional utilities cooperated in
supplying power to each other.
But it is too early to say that we have a solid foundation for
keeping the number of active nuclear reactors at zero.
The clustered siting of power plants, whereby electricity is sent
from large-scale power stations to faraway areas with heavy power
consumption areas, has remained unchanged after the nuclear disaster.
Systemic vulnerability is still an issue. And there is always the
danger of unforeseen circumstances unfolding if a key thermal power
plant were to malfunction during peak power demand.SYSTEMIC VULNERABILITY PERSISTS
The current situation, where thermal power accounts for 90 percent
of Japan’s electricity, could hardly be called sustainable. As long
as Japan relies on imports for its energy sources, the country will
remain permanently exposed to the risk of variations in foreign
exchange rates and prices.
We are also left to reflect on the extent to which the general
public and the Japanese economy could tolerate additional increases
in electricity rates. We have to avoid letting rate hikes, without
detailed studies, have a serious impact on people’s living
standards and general economic activity.
The risk of a serious impact on people’s lives has yet to be
reduced to zero. Given the situation, it is difficult to totally rule
out the option of restarting nuclear reactors as a last resort.
However, decisions on restarting individual nuclear reactors must
be made with extreme care.
What kind of disadvantage could be averted by activating a
particular nuclear reactor? Will a nuclear restart still be necessary
after power demand has been covered by a mutual supply of electricity
over broad areas? Persuasive explanations should be available from
viewpoints such as these.
The nuclear reactor in question must be safe enough from the
viewpoint of its geographical location. Means must also be available
to allow residents of adjacent areas to evacuate in an emergency.
These are obvious preconditions for a nuclear restart.
The fact that we have got along without nuclear power has
correspondingly heightened the hurdles for a restart.
Japan, under these circumstances, must develop renewable energy
sources as quickly as possible and pursue a shift to a distributed
system of electric power. Indispensable to that end are policy
initiatives for guiding a switch to the new direction.
The central government should set a pathway for reform and focus
its resources on upgrades on the power grid, disposal of nuclear
waste and other efforts. There should also be organizational
arrangement for pursuing the decommissioning of nuclear reactors,
assistance to local governments that will lose revenue from the
nuclear plants they host, and transitional measures for business
operators associated with nuclear power generation.FUKUSHIMA DISASTER THE STARTING POINT
The Abe administration, however, is heading in the opposite
direction.
It initially said it would reduce Japan’s dependence on nuclear
energy as much as possible, but then changed course to maintaining
nuclear plants, and left it all up to the Nuclear Regulation
Authority to make all decisions on the safety of nuclear reactors
ahead of any go-aheads for restarts.
The NRA is tasked only with screening procedures to ensure the
safe operation of nuclear power plants. It is not in any way
responsible for the entire policy.
The administration told local governments hosting nuclear plants
that the central government will be responsible, but what precisely
this entails remains to be seen. A mountain of unanswered questions
remain about the Sendai nuclear plant, such as measures to ensure the
safety of local residents and measures against potential volcanic
eruptions.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster should be the starting point for
reflecting on the issue of nuclear power generation.
We should think about ways to make the most of the fact that no
nuclear reactor is active now.
Source : Asahi Shimbunhttp://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/editorial/AJ201507300035

Tepco
reports that contamination levels in the unit 1 discharge canal has
been rising significantly....

*Cesium
137 was at 91,000 bq/liter Beta radiation was at 110,000 bq/liter
Both readings taken July 24th.*Cesium 137 was at 79,000 bq/liter
Beta radiation was at 94,000 bq/liter Both readings taken July 22th.

*Cesium
137 was at 28,000 bq/liter Beta radiation was at 36,000 bq/liter Both
readings taken July 15th.

*Cesium
137 was at 29,000 bq/liter Beta radiation was at 37,000 bq/liter Both
readings taken July 13th.

*Cesium
137 was at 20,000 bq/liter Beta radiation was at 26,000 bq/liter Both
readings taken July 10th.

Tepco
also admitted that subdrain pit #16 has seen a rise in contamination
since May

Why
either of these locations are now rising does not yet have a
definitive cause. Work to concrete in the sea front trenches at the
plant could be pushing contaminated water to take other routes. The
freezing in progress of the frozen wall could be having an impact on
the migration of contaminated water.

Workers at the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant on Sunday will start the removal of a
fuel exchanger inside the Number 3 reactor building. The 20-ton
device fell into the fuel pool during the 2011 disaster.

The
device has since been a major obstacle for workers at Tokyo Electric
Power Company in the start of removal of extremely radioactive rubble
left in the storage pool. 566 fuel rods remain inside the spent fuel
pool.

Workers cannot directly take part in the process as the
site is highly radioactive. The work will require 2 remote-controlled
cranes that will lift and remove the device, which is some 14 meters
long.

The work poses a challenge as spent fuel may suffer
damage if the device falls back into the pool during
removal.

Workers accidentally dropped a 400-kilogram device
into the pool last August. Though none of the rods suffered damage,
removal was postponed for 4 months.

TEPCO has been preparing
for the removal by developing equipment tailored to grip the device.
Cushions have also been placed on top of the fuel rods.

Wednesday, 29 July 2015

Tepco handout (pdf), summary translation by Fukushima Diary, Jul 21, 2015 (emphasis added): Tepco announced Fukushima plant area has irregularly sunk since 311… The report reads Reactor 1 turbine building sank by 730 mm [2.40 ft], Reactor 2 by 725 mm, Reactor 3 by 710 mm, Reactor 4 by 712 mm.IAEA Headquarters (pdf), 2015: We know that the buildings will decay and become less stable…
there is the dilemma of 1) gathering more information… and 2) acting
earlier and maybe not having enough information to make good decisions.IAEA Nuclear Energy Series (pdf), 2014: The impact of the salt on the corrosion of structural materials had to be assessed and measures taken accordingly to retain integrity.Lake Barrett, Tepco adviser (pdf): Reactor building structure has likely been degraded… Explosions Weaken RB Structure… Aftershock May Cause Building Failure… — Issues: … Aftershock Structural Integrity… — Safety Challenges: … Containment DegradationUS National Research Council,
2014: Substantial structural damage occurred… particularly Units 3 and
4… The explosions [were] extremely destructive. The complex structure of
the lower part of the reactor buildings is well suited to cause flame acceleration… Ironically, having a strong structure with multiple compartments can greatly enhance the damage… this result, although not intuitive, is now well established.Kazuhiro Suzuki, IRID managing director (pdf), 2014: Estimation of structural strength decline by sea water inflow; Evaluating device/structural integrity and remaining life…Sugiura Machine Design Office: We obtained results [using a] flying robot. We already have started to work on plant deterioration investigation with major manufacturer.IRID 2014 Annual Symposium (pdf):

Part 6: “One more important point I need to cite is to assure the stability of the site… because of the presence of the ocean water, corrosion could take place… preventative measures against the corrosion need to be taken.“

Part 85-87: “Next is assessing structural integrity of RPV and PCV [and] get qualitative data of corrosion rate. There is sea water injected so corrosion may gradually proceed… To be prepared against future possible earthquakes we have to evaluate whether this is tolerant or not… We must consider corrosion.”

Part 91: “PCV [integrity] is generally alright, butin some parts — for instance the column support of the suppression chamber — it [doesn't meet standards].”

Part 92: “This is the pedestal of RPV… The molten debris may be causing corrosion.”

Hey Tepco. You have made steady profits since 2012 when the Taxpayers
bailed you out. How about you spend that money and DO something about
your 3 melting reactors? Or give it to the hundreds of thousands of
people whos lives you have totally destroyed. No. That would be the proper thing to do. Can't have that.

Tepco is making steady profits since 2012 while still receiving money from the Japanese Government, shouldered by the Japanese Taxpayers:

Japan approves increase in Fukushima compensation to $57 billion

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan on
Tuesday approved an increase in compensation payments for the Fukushima
crisis to 7.07 trillion yen ($57.18 billion), as tens of thousands of
evacuees remain in temporary housing more than four years after the
disaster.

Tokyo
Electric Power Co (Tepco), the operator of the wrecked Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear station, will receive 950 billion yen more in public
funds on top of the 6.125 trillion agreed earlier, the utility and the
government said.

Tepco’s
Quarterly Profit Triples as Fuel Prices Plunge

Tokyo Electric Power Co.,
operator of the wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, said
first-quarter operating profit tripled as a drop in fuel prices helped
cut costs.
Tepco, as Japan’s biggest utility is known, posted an operating
profit of 228.3 billion yen ($1.85 billion) for the three months ended
June 30, compared with 70.7 billion yen a year ago, the company said in a
statement Wednesday.
The company benefited from a more than 45 percent plunge in liquefied
natural gas prices after crude oil fell to a record low. More than a
third of Tepco’s power generation capacity comes from LNG, compared with 14 percent from oil and 8 percent from coal.
Factoring in the impact of a weaker yen, the plunge in oil prices alone boosted current profit by 276 billion yen, Tepco said.
“With the drop in the price of crude and a minimization of costs, the
operating profit is in the black for the second year in a row,” the
company said in the statement.

Fuel Spending

Tepco spent 35 percent less on LNG purchases in
the first quarter, while consumption of the fuel fell by 5 percent. The
company’s spending on crude oil rose by 7.5 percent, while its use was
up 25 percent, the company said.
The utility’s purchases of coal rose 4.9 percent to 1.75 million
metric tons, resulting in a 3.9 percent increase in spending on the
fuel.
Indonesia was Tepco’s largest crude supplier last year, while Australia was the top coal provider.
Total sales dipped 1.1 percent to 1.55 trillion yen as the company generated 6 percent less capacity in the quarter.
Japan’s power consumption dropped 1.8 percent in the quarter from a
year earlier, the fifth straight quarterly decline, to 189 terawatt
hours, according to industry figures. That’s the lowest quarterly use
since 2000.
With Tepco struggling to win approval to restart its nuclear reactors, the drop in fuel costs provides relief.
In June, the price of LNG imported into Japan dropped to $7.60 per
million British thermal units, the lowest level in two years. Power
utilities with a high ratio of LNG will see an increase in profits,
Syusaku Nishikawa, an analyst at Daiwa Securities Co., said by e-mail.
Tepco’s first-quarter net income was 203.3 billion yen, compared with
a net loss of 173 billion yen a year ago. The company’s net income is
influenced by costs related to the payout to those affected by the
Fukushima nuclear accident more than four years ago.
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-29/tepco-s-first-quarter-profit-triples-as-fuel-prices-cut-costs

The nuclear complex is organized around money and the seduction of
absolute power over matter. The profit motive seems greater today than
the latter organizing principle, as illustrated by relentless pressures
on profitability at Toshiba, a company that includes nuclear engineering
in its portfolio:

Current
and former executives and high-ranking employees at the Toshiba group
say its various divisions had been under enormous pressure from top
board members to achieve unreasonably high profit goals, forcing them to
pad their profits.

"I never want to go back to such a life,"
said a man, who once served as president of a subsidiary of Toshiba
Corp. that is under fire for padding profits through accounting
irregularities....

A report released by a third-party panel that
investigated the profit overstating scandal describes in detail how
Tanaka and other top-ranking executives set unreasonably high profit
goals -- called a "challenge" -- for each division and subsidiary and
forced those responsible to pad their profits through accounting
irregularities....

The crisis at the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima
No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant that broke out in March 2011 also contributed
to Toshiba executives' excessive pursuit of profits.

Toshiba's
nuclear plant division, which executives regarded as a key division that
would grow steadily, suffered a setback following the outbreak of the
disaster. "We had thought that the division's future would be rosy but
it began to take a thorny path," a high-ranking official of Tohiba says.

Today, aging nuclear plants are being "up rated" and having their lives
extended far beyond design specifications so that utilities and
government do not have to face the problems and prohibitive costs of
nuclear decommissioning.

Tiny uprates have long been common. But nuclear watchdogs and the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission's own safety advisory panel have expressed
concern over larger boosts — some by up to 20% — that the NRC began
approving in 1998. Twenty of the nation's 104 reactors have undergone these "extended power uprates."

...In an uprated reactor, more neutrons bombard the core, increasing
stress on its steel shell. Core temperatures are higher, lengthening the
time to cool it during a shutdown. Water and steam flow at higher
pressures, increasing corrosion of pipes, valves and other parts...

"This trend is, in principle, detrimental to the stability
characteristics of the reactor, inasmuch as it increases the probability
of instability events and increases the severity of such events, if
they were to occur," the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, which
is mandated by Congress to advise the NRC, has warned.

Nuclear accidents are far more likely than past predictions and human greed is increasing the likelihood of accidents every day.
Source: Majia's Blog
http://majiasblog.blogspot.fr/2015/07/intensive-focus-on-profits-amplifies.html

According to Tepco, they started removing the main part of cover of Reactor 1 on 7/28/2015.
They announced that there was no significant change in dust monitoring data and radiation monitoring post readings.
The former Fukushima worker “Happy11311″ commented on Twitter that
the high level of contamination might be retained on the ground floor
with rain after they take the cover away.

Tepco on Tuesday began
dismantling the temporary shroud covering the wrecked reactor 1
building at the Fukushima No 1 nuclear plant.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. installed the cover in October 2011 to
keep radioactive materials from dispersing.

Workers used a crane Tuesday to remove one of the six panels that
form the shroud’s roof. Each panel is about 7 meters wide and about
42 meters long.

As the panel came off, the upper part of the reactor building
could be seen for the first time since December, when part of the
cover was temporarily removed. The building’s exterior was
shattered in a hydrogen explosion in March 2011, in the first few
days of the crisis.

Tepco plans to complete removing the shroud in fiscal 2016 and to
clear debris and install equipment for the sensitive process of
removing the 392 spent fuel assemblies currently lying in the
building’s storage pool. That procedure is expected to begin in
fiscal 2020.

Takao Kikori, a senior nuclear safety official in the Fukushima
Prefectural Government, called for care to be taken in the
dismantling work to ensure the safety of local people.

The utility plans to remove the second panel in early August or
later and complete the removal of all six panels by the end of this
year. Later it will remove the side panels and install windbreaker
sheets ahead of clearing the debris.

The cover was installed as an emergency measure to keep
radioactive dust from scattering. Tepco initially planned to
dismantle it in fiscal 2013 or 2014 but was forced to delay the work
to take additional dust control and other measures.

Tuesday, 28 July 2015

Fukushima has a
population of a little above 2 millions people. Out of f which 118,862 have
evacuated : 73,077 within the prefecture, 45,735 outside the
prefecture, and current adresses unknown 50,

Four years after an
earthquake and tsunami touched off the nuclear meltdown, Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pressing to lift evacuation orders by
March 2017 and cut off compensation to victims of the disaster by
2018. The move would allow—and some say force—tens of thousands
of refugees to go back to their homes.The pro-nuclear prime
minister says that the move, proposed in June, is aimed at speeding
up Fukushima's "reconstruction."

Under the national government
guidelines, residents in government-ordered evacuation zones and
"specific spots recommended for evacuation," where
radiation dosage is regionally high, are entitled to 100,000 yen each
a month under TEPCO's compensation for mental distress.According
to a partial estimate - there is no total public estimate of the cost
of Fukushima disaster so far - but a partial estimate says it’s
about $100 billion. Sixty percent of that has been spent for
compensation measures. So compensating people for their loss of land
and jobs is very expensive to the government and since the government
has bailed out the company that ran the Fukushima reactors it’s
basically now the government that is liable. Tokyo's preparing to
declare some parts of the evacuation zone around the crippled
Fukushima nuclear plant, a safe place to live. Tokyo wants people
back in the area as a matter of reducing the overall cost of the
disaster, However environmentalists warn many areas still show
radiation levels 20 times the globally accepted limit.

I don’t think it is
possible to clean up in the real sense of the word, meaning that you
take away the added radioactivity that has been contaminating the
soil, the roofs, everything. It’s impossible. So what you can do is
you can reduce the radioactive contamination in some of the areas.
You can take off soil; you can decontaminate what has been done by
water sprayed. But keep in mind that 80 percent of Japan is mountains
and in this area as well there is a lot of mountains, there is a lot
of dense forest, there is absolutely no way even to slightly
decontaminate that region. So you will not have a stable situation of
contamination but it will move all the time and a new radiation will
wash down from the mountains and forests into the other lands.

A number of opinion polls,
surveys have shown that the percentage that is decided to go back
might be around a fifth of all people evacuated, many people are
still undecided and about half decided not to go back. People have to
imagine - besides the radiation situation - what are they going back
to. We should not forget that many of the homes in Japan are made of
wood and they are basically in extremely bad shape and would have to
be completely redone. There is not much to go back to and on top of
it there is the radiation issue. There is also the issue of going
back to their homes but what about their neighbors, what about
collectivity, what about the services? So there are all kinds of
other social issues besides the pure health issue.

Prime Minister Abe would like
the people of Japan to believe that they are decontaminating vast
areas of Fukushima to levels safe enough for people to live in. The
reality is that this is a policy doomed to failure. The forests of
Fukushima prefecture (80% of the land) are a vast stock of
radioactivity that will remain both a direct hazard and source of
potential recontamination for hundreds of years. It’s impossible to
decontaminate.

The elimination of
compensation would effectively force people back into an environment
that is dangerous for their health.Stripping nuclear victims of
their already inadequate compensation, which may force them to have
to return to unsafe, highly radioactive areas for financial reasons,
amounts to economic coercion. Let’s be clear: this is a political
decision by the Abe Government, not one based on science, data, or
public health.

Residents across Japan have
staged protests and filed lawsuits to block nuclear restarts, and
polls show that, in the aftermath of the 2011 disaster, a clear
majority of the Japanese public opposes nuclear power. In addition,
surveys reveal low public confidence in the Japanese government and
the Tokyo Electric Power Co.—the company behind the Fukushima
Daiichi plant that continues to release radiation into the
ecosystem.Despite public opposition, Abe is aggressively pursuing
a return to nuclear power. Earlier this month, Abe's Liberal
Democratic Party revealed that it aims to have 20 percent of the
country's electricity supplied by nuclear power by 2030.

Over four years after the
triple reactor core meltdowns and exploded containment buildings at
the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the majority of the
Japanese public has remained opposed to any nuclear restart. The
country has been completely nuclear-free for nearly two years, thanks
in large part to significant public opposition, in spite of the
massive pressure from nuclear utilities and the Abe government on
local city governments.However, these utilities are massively
powerful and the Abe government is wholly in bed with them.In an effort to reduce
public opposition, Abe has been pushing forward the pro-nuclear
agenda to 'normalize' a nuclear disaster. If the public can be
convinced that less than five years after the worst nuclear disaster
in a generation, citizens can go home and return to life the way it
was before the disaster – with no additional health risks – then
that is a powerful argument against the majority of Japanese citizens
who oppose nuclear reactor restarts.The effort to minimize
the impact of the disaster on the nuclear industry has been aided by
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an agency charged with
the promotion of nuclear energy in its charter. The IAEA has sought
to downplay the radiological risks to the population since the early
days in 2011. In fact, it produced two documents that can be
said to have laid the foundation and justification for Abe’s
current policy of de facto forced resettlement.The reality is
this myth making requires that the people of Fukushima prefecture be
the sacrificial lambs for the nuclear industry. This is not only
wholly unjust, but is a violation of their human rights.

After all, this is not the
confusion that ensues after a nuclear disaster. This is a thought-out
plan of forcing people back into their heavily contaminated former
homes, no matter what the cost – both in wasteful, ineffective
decontamination of these areas and in human health risks.Compounding
the gross injustice of the Abe Government’s forced resettlement
policy, by focusing on creating a myth of a return to normalcy –
and therefore investing vast amounts in expensive and futile
decontamination – it is therefore utterly neglecting the
contaminated areas that were never evacuated. Rather than addressing
this urgent need to reduce the radiation risks to these populations,
whom are currently living in contaminated areas, the government is
more interested in deceiving the public in Japan and globally by
creating illusions.

What is clear is that the
damage done to the people of Fukushima prefecture, and especially
Iitate, is irreversible and irreparable. Their entire communities and
way of life were destroyed by the nuclear disaster at Fukushima
Daiichi, with no prospect for a safe return in the foreseeable
future.To keep the victims of the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in limbo, many crammed into tiny
temporary housing cubicles, for nearly five years is inhumane. To
force these citizens back into such heavily contaminated areas via
the economic leverage the Government holds over them is a gross
iniquity. And for the International Atomic Energy Agency to assist
the Japanese Government in the propaganda war being waged on
Fukushima victims not only undermines whatever credibility it may
have, but amounts to it being an accomplice in a crime against the
people of Japan.

The interior of the No. 1 reactor building of the Fukushima No. 1
nuclear power plant can be seen from above after a canopy panel was
removed on July 28.

OKUMA, Fukushima
Prefecture--Tokyo Electric Power Co. on July 28 started removing a
canopy covering a damaged reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1
nuclear plant to prepare for the eventual extraction of spent nuclear
fuel inside.

Around 7 a.m., workers using a giant crane lifted away the first
of six canopy panels, each measuring 40 meters long and 7 meters
wide, from the No. 1 reactor building.

The 30-minute removal of the panel left a large hole in the canopy
through which steel beams on the damaged upper part of structure
could be seen from above. Workers closely monitored radiation levels
in the surrounding areas during the removal process.

The utility plans to remove the remaining five panels from next
week.

The removal of the canopy will allow TEPCO to clear debris inside
the building, possibly in the latter half of fiscal 2016. That
process should pave the way for the removal of nuclear fuel rods from
the spent fuel pool in the building.

Before removing the canopy panel, the utility sprayed the inside
of the reactor building with liquid resin through holes drilled in
the cover to prevent radioactive materials from being stirred up
during the dismantling work.

TEPCO initially planned to start removing the canopy panels from
the No. 1 reactor building in summer 2014, but the schedule was
delayed because a large amount of radioactive substances was released
into the environment when the utility removed debris from the No. 3
reactor building in August 2013.

Even after the anti-scattering resin was sprayed into the No. 1
reactor building in May, removal of the canopy panel was postponed by
a problem inside the building.

SOMA, Fukushima
Prefecture--Fishermen in northern Fukushima Prefecture gave Tokyo
Electric Power Co. the green light on July 27 to release radioactive
groundwater from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant
into the ocean after it undergoes decontamination treatment.
The Soma-Futaba fisheries cooperative association approved TEPCO’s
“subdrain plan” at a board member meeting after earlier approval
by the Iwaki fisheries union, which brings together fishermen
operating on the southern Fukushima coast, to back the plant
operator’s plan.

After the decisions by the two fisheries unions, the Fukushima
Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations is
expected to formally approve the subdrain plan in mid-August at the
earliest.

To deal with the accumulation of contaminated groundwater at the
plant, TEPCO and the central government implemented from May last
year a “groundwater bypass” that intercepts clean groundwater
before it flows into contaminated reactor buildings and reroutes it
safely around the facility into the ocean.

Under the subdrain plan, the utility will pump 500 tons of water
from 41 subdrain wells around the premises of the plant’s four
crippled reactors each day. It expects that the amount of groundwater
flowing into the reactor buildings will be drastically reduced, and
the amount of contaminated water generated at the plant will be
halved from the current levels.

The water will be released into the sea after it undergoes
decontamination treatment to reduce cesium levels to below 1
becquerel and beta ray-emitting radioactive materials to less than 3
becquerels.
Because the decontamination equipment cannot remove tritium, water
contaminated with the radioactive isotope that emits 1,500 becquerels
or more of radiation will not be released into the sea.
TEPCO has sought the fisheries cooperatives’ approval of the
subdrain plan.

But TEPCO’s delay in disclosing the flow of radioactive water
into the ocean whenever it rained--which came to light in
February--hampered negotiations with the fisheries unions, which felt
the incident undermined their confidence in the utility.

At the meeting of the board members of the Soma-Futaba fisheries
union, TEPCO officials explained that the subdrain plan was essential
in reducing the flow of contaminated water into the ocean, according
to Hiroyuki Sato, the union president.

The members who had remained strongly opposed eventually
recognized the need for the subdrain plan and agreed to approve it,
Sato said.

Based on requests from the two local fisheries cooperatives, the
prefectural federation of fisheries unions will demand that TEPCO and
the central government conduct periodic checks on waters emitted from
the subdrain program.

The prefectural union will also request that a third-party
watchdog monitor the process to prevent contaminated water from
flowing into the ocean.

It will also request that TEPCO and the government to continue to
provide compensation to local fishermen, while taking effective
measures when the subdrain project causes harmful rumors about their
products.